Apples to Apples

There are a lot of stories that feature apples, I've noticed.

- Eris and the Golden Apple of Discord (the one that started the Trojan War, according to Homer)

- St. Dorothy, who is said to have sent an angel with golden apples and golden roses to a Roman governor after her martyrdom

- Guinevere and the poisoned apple

- Snow White

- Popular imagery concerning Adam and Eve (Though thanks to Prof. Eric Jenislawski of Christendom College, I actually have an explanation for this one)

     I want to say there are more, but I can't think of them. Why apples? Is it because they are base or low or ubiquitous?

     Now for the fun fact about Adam and Eve and the "apple": Nowhere in Genesis does it say that the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was an apple, so. . . Why does everyone think of an apple? The Latin word for "apple" and the Latin word for "evil" are spelled exactly the same, minus a mere macron in certain works. So, Genesis translated into Latin, word is "malum" and somebody must have thought that it wasn't a coincidence that "malum" is either evil or apple. Tada! There's the explanation I got in 201. Fascinating class, that.

 

See, folks? This is why you should never buy a Mac. ;)

     Oh, and check this out, y'all! *squeal*     http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/mar/05/five-hundred-fairytales-discovered-Germany

Sundry Notes

Typed from notes I'd taken a week ago while reading the aforementioned book, The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales:

     Why are the stories so often about young people? Always a child or a youth as the focus. You could say that it's the same today, but I think it's safe to say that there are more modern stories about middle-aged people than fairy tales about them. I can't think of a fairy tale that has as its main character a person over 30. I'm sure they exist, but I can't think of any.

     Since fairy tales are about such human things, everyone in every age can read, feel, and understand them. They deal with people from many classes, but they're not about "class warfare" or anything like that.

     On the attitude fairy tale characters take to dwarves and dragons and stuff that doesn't exist in the real world: Maybe because everyone more or less believed in God? That's not to say everyone was a saint, but there were a lot less atheists. Medieval culture. Because they didn't have the science we do, people accepted religious/superstitious explanations for things, and it was therefore easier to suspend disbelief with these stories? Just brainstorming.